A Beeple artwork that exists only as a digital file and was sold as an ‘non-fungible token’ for an incredible $ 69.3 million at an online auction that Christie’s Thursday hosted, was purchased by an investor known only by a pseudonym and who paid for it with cryptocurrency, the auction house said Friday.
“It feels like I got a steal,” the buyer, who goes by the pseudonym Metakovan, said in a Google Meet interview (without video) arranged by Christie’s.
Metakovan, the founder of the Metapurse, a fund that collects ‘nonfungible tokens’ or NFTs, said he would pay for the work and Christie’s fees in Ether, a cryptocurrency. “As we speak, I’m sending the last transaction,” he said.
The work he purchased, “Everydays – The First 5000 Days”, is a collage of all the images that digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, has posted online since 2007. The image was specially created, or ‘beaten’, by the artist for Christie’s scheduled online auction as NFT. Such digital collectibles have no physical existence but are evidenced by ownership and authenticity using blockchain technology. ‘Everydays’, a JPG, was the first digital NFT auctioned by Christie’s.
For the sale of the NFT, the value of which was initially not clear for a long time, Christie’s offered to accept payment in Ether for the first time, which according to some would strengthen the legitimacy of the currency. But the auction house has so far not announced its willingness to accept cryptocurrencies for the more traditional artwork it sells.
With a bid of only $ 100, the two-week auction was extended by about 90 seconds, as the bid at the last minute raised the price by $ 69.3 million, and Metakovan, whose real name was not given was not the successful bidder, according to Christie’s. The result makes Beeple, little known in the mainstream art world, the third most expensive living artist at the auction, next to David Hockney and Jeff Koons.
“I was quite anxious at the end,” said Metakovan, who had just bid on one Christie’s auction before, recalling the last frenzy of online bidding during the 90 seconds of extra time at the Beeple auction. “But I’m used to bidding on crypto auctions,” Metakovan said. “I do not know how I would have acted if it had been a live sale.”
The bidder, Justin Sun, the founder of the blockchain network BitTorrent, said earlier Twitter that “he was offered $ 250,000 by another buyer in the last 20 seconds.”
Metakovan said the fundraiser, which was established in 2016, never sold an acquisition and acquired a wide range of NFTs.
“We see NFTs as a larger space; there are so many different species, ”said Metakovan, who started his collection in 2016 by buying land in virtual worlds. In 2019, he paid around $ 111,000 at an auction for ‘1-1-1’, the first digital car for the blockchain game F1® Delta Time. This was the highest price NFT sold in that year.
Last December, Metakovan’s collection also acquired a complete collection of 20 Beeple NFT works on the specialist Nifty Gateway online market.
But paid equivalent to $ 69.3 million (converted to 42,329,453 Ether) for a Beeple, for a work of art that does not physically exist? He said he feels it is a good deal. “It still has a long way to go,” Metakovan said.